


Heaven and Hell

by emynii, ObliObla



Series: Nia & Obli's Whumptober 2019 [23]
Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Existential Angst, Gen, Guilt, Heaven, Hell, Season/Series 03, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-25
Updated: 2019-10-25
Packaged: 2021-01-03 06:06:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 666
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21174659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emynii/pseuds/emynii, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliObla/pseuds/ObliObla
Summary: Charlotte didn’t think she would go to Hell when she died.For the Whumptober prompt: bleeding out





	Heaven and Hell

**Author's Note:**

> "Each of us has heaven and hell in him.”  
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray

Charlotte didn’t think she would go to Hell when she died. She didn’t know she was going anywhere. Frankly, she hadn’t had a helluva long time to get used to the concept of death in the first place. Also to be frank, she hadn’t particularly thought Hell was a real place at all. 

And if it was, _ surely _ it was for bad people. And Charlotte Richards wasn’t a bad person. She worked hard, paid her taxes, didn’t hurt anyone. She knew real, actual bad people—she’d represented them. Gotten them off. But _ that _couldn’t have damned her, could it?

That was just the job.

And sure, she’d picked that job over plenty of other, more ethical gigs. Sure, she worked long hours, didn’t get home as often as she’d like. Sure, she didn’t give to charity except when she got a fancy dinner out of it. _Sure, _ she was shtupping the boss’s son. But those weren’t _ crimes. _

At least, not in the state of California, they weren’t.

And then someone had to go and stab her in the back. Quite literally _ stab her in the back. _ With a screwdriver. Like an asshole. That was, apparently, what she got for trying to do the right thing for once in her goddamned life.

_ Too little too late. Too little too late. Too little too late. _

But how was that fair? How was she supposed to have known any of this was real? How was it right she be sent to Hell for eternity without even a goddamn trial? What kind of system was _ that? _

* * *

_ Charlotte wakes up to the smell of coffee. She walks downstairs. She pours a cup, gets a bowl of cereal. Elliot is there, talking to her, but she doesn’t understand. Micah and Ivy try to show her their homework, grins on their faces, but the pages are blank. And she is happy. _

_ But this is wrong. _

_ The front door opens. A man walks in—someone she represented. Someone she allowed to do terrible things. Someone who paid her to be allowed to do terrible things. And he has a gun. _

_ He raises the gun, shoots Elliot. Shoots Ivy. Shoots Micah. _

_ And she smiles. _

_ The man disappears, and she is the only one left to blame. If you’re guilty, you’re guilty. _

_ They fall to the floor, and she smiles. They’re bleeding out, and she smiles. They look up at her, gasping her name, stippling their lips red. And she smiles. And she smiles. _

_ And she smiles. _

* * *

Charlotte didn’t think she would go to Heaven when she died. She hadn’t thought it’d been enough. Hadn’t even known there was such a thing as enough.

And she had made so many mistakes.

She thought she understood, now. The point of redemption wasn’t to go to Heaven, wasn’t to make her feel less guilty, didn’t have anything to do with her at all.

The point was to right wrongs she had caused. To do good by those she had failed. And to always try her damndest even if it all seemed meaningless.

So she would go to Hell when she died, again. She would be tortured, again. And nothing would truly undo the pain she’d caused, but nothing could undo the good.

No matter what happened, she knew she could cling to that

But now she was flying up, up, _ up _ into the light. And there would be peace.

But what did Charlotte Richards—once called shark and pitbull, certainly never called calm, quiet, or sedate—know about peace?

The gates were silver and perfect. The walls were silver and perfect. The speech—when some WASPy bastard who called himself Phanuel deigned to finally give it—was silver and perfect.

And boring. So boring. Boring in every corner she was discouraged to explore. Boring in her cell—_ not a cell, never a cell. _ She knew what true torment was, and this certainly wasn’t it. 

She was, she had to admit, content.

But was that really all there was?


End file.
